Sun Joins Linux International

In a year when Netscape has released their source and many companies have announced that their products will be supporting Linux, I felt Sun's move was an interesting enough development to want to know more.

In May, Sun Microsystems joined Linux
International. In a year when Netscape has released their source
and many companies have announced that their products will be
supporting Linux, I felt Sun's move was an interesting enough
development to want to know more. Therefore, I did a short e-mail
interview with Charles Andres, a Group Manager in Market
Development Engineering at Sun Microsystems. Here's what he told
me.

Margie: Why has Sun made the
decision to join Linux International?

Charles: Sun Microsystems is
responding to renewed interest in running Linux on its UltraSPARC
products, such as the Ultra 5. SPARC products have always been
designed to run UNIX extremely well. Linux runs well on UltraSPARC
platforms.

It is important to note that this move in no way diminishes
Sun's support for Solaris, a proven reliable scalable operating
system. The Solaris environment will still be provided with all
SPARC systems and is considered by us to be the best operating
system for enterprise and network computing.

Margie: Is Sun planning to
have Linux support for all its products?

Charles: Sun Microsystems is
not planning on selling any products that are bundled with Linux.
Sun bundles Solaris with every workstation and server it currently
ships. There are also no plans to provide support for Linux
directly. However, there are a number of Linux vendors that support
a variety of platforms. We are working to ensure that these vendors
include UltraSPARC platform support for their Linux
products.

Margie: Does this move
represent a shift in policy for Sun? Last year, we asked for a
picture of a SunSPARC workstation to use on our cover, and were
refused because “Linux is a competitor.” (We used a Ross
SPARCplug instead.)

Charles: Sun Microsystems
has never had an official policy regarding Linux up to now. As
stated above, Sun Microsystems has gone from having no policy
regarding Linux, to helping to ensure that Linux runs on SPARC by
assisting companies who sell supported versions of Linux.

Margie: How does Sun feel
about the “Open Source” movement? (Prominent in the news, because
of Netscape source release.)

Charles: Sun Microsystems
has a long tradition of supporting open standards, typically
through standardized interfaces, many of which Sun has invented.
Providing source code may be appropriate in some specific
instances, but typically works well only in situations where
trademarks associated with the source code are licensed.
Compatibility, consistency, reliability and upgrades require a
business model that can finance the effort required to provide
them.

Users who want the freedom of Open Source take on the
responsibility of maintaining their own source code, but cannot
guarantee consistent results with other variants. This could become
a problem for Netscape source variants if they are not uniquely
identified. This is why we feel brand protection through licensing
is so important.

Margie: Some people feel
that Java should be made Open Source. Any chance of that
happening?

Charles: Source for the Java
language is available to anyone who signs the Java license which is
free for non-commercial use. This is done to allow Java to run
anywhere, and to avoid problems that could occur when source is
modified to produce variants that are not consistent with the Java
language specification.

Margie: Anything else you'd
like to add?

Charles: We look forward to
working with you and the Linux community to promote the advantages
of UNIX and Linux on SPARC in the future.